Saturdays with the Stars Season 4 Finale

Two of our stars this year, Lucille Ball & Ann Sothern

We ended the year on a Saturday (a first for our series), so I wasn't able to get this recap out in 2022 like we normally do, but I didn't want to finish our fourth season of Saturdays with the Stars without our annual recap.  While we are headed into a new season this coming Saturday focusing on western stars, I would be remiss if we didn't take a moment to talk through actors in television, and what I learned from our fourth season.

This year was really interesting for me for a couple of reasons.  For starters, it was really the first season where I didn't have "stars" at the center, and of course it was our first season with men.  As a result, there were actors this year where I was watching a movie where they barely showed up, character actors in Old Hollywood being harder to track their "most significant" roles.  As a result, our annual discussion below of "favorite performances" I ended up in some cases having less options.

But I also kind of loved that, as it underlined the main thesis of this year: that television gave these performers an opportunity that movies simply couldn't.  Some of these actors had great potential, but the public (or the studio heads) couldn't see it for what it was, and TV brought that talent out in them.  Others, quite frankly, needed the banality of television compared to the "make an impact every time" culture of movies because their star personas weren't as curated.  We'll be getting back to star culture in 2023 (while they might occasionally take supporting parts depending on our film, all 12 of our stars this year are generally considered to be "leading players"), I won't forget that lesson as I continue to watch the twelve stars we watched this past year in other films in the decades to come.  Below, I have created a little list celebrating the best of this year's stars.  Thank you so much to everyone who joined us for part or all of this year's season-I'm excited to have you back for season five's "When Cowboys Ruled Hollywood"!: 

Favorite Performance from Each Star 

January: Lucille Ball-Dance. Girl. Dance.

February: Jack Benny-George Washington Slept Here

March: Eve Arden-Comrade X

April: Ann Sothern-Lady in a Cage

May: Robert Young-They Won't Believe Me

June: Spring Byington-BF's Daughter

July: Loretta Young-Midnight Mary

August: John Payne-Silver Lode

September: Ward Bond-The Wings of Eagles

October: Walter Brennan-Come and Get It

November: Donna Reed-The Last Time I Saw Paris

December: Barbara Stanwyck-Baby Face

5 Favorite Performers (Alphabetical, and based solely on the films we watched as a collective & not on the rest of their careers)

Eve Arden

Lucille Ball

Jack Benny

Ann Sothern

Barbara Stanwyck

5 Favorite Performances of the Year (Alphabetical)

Lucille Ball, Dance. Girl. Dance.

Barbara Stanwyck, Baby Face

Barbara Stanwyck, The Furies

Ann Sothern, Lady in a Cage

Loretta Young, Midnight Mary

10 Favorite Films of the Year (Alphabetical)

Baby Face

Dance. Girl. Dance.

Forty Guns

The Furies

George Washington Slept Here

Lady in a Cage

Rio Bravo

The Stranger

They Were Expendable

They Won't Believe Me

Top 10 Performances of the Year (Not By Our Stars...and Yes, Alphabetical)

Judith Anderson, The Furies

James Caan, Lady in a Cage

Charles Coburn, George Washington Slept Here

Olivia de Havilland, Lady in a Cage

Susan Hayward, They Won't Believe Me

Walter Huston, The Furies

Percy Kilbride, George Washington Slept Here

Edward G. Robinson, The Stranger

John Wayne, Rio Bravo

Orson Welles, The Stranger

OVP: Northwest Passage (1940)

Film: Northwest Passage (1940)

Stars: Spencer Tracy, Robert Young, Walter Brennan, Ruth Hussey

Director: King Vidor

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Cinematography)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Walter Brennan: click here to learn more about Mr. Brennan (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

One of my favorite jokes about Walter Brennan, and I want to say I heard it as an introduction Robert Osborne did on TCM to Kentucky a few years back, was about how you never entirely knew what age Brennan would be playing onscreen.  Brennan's big break in the mid-1930's in Barbary Coast, followed by him cementing his status as a valuable character actor in his Oscar-winning turn in Come and Get It, happened just after he had turned 40.  But most of his career was spent playing old men.  He didn't have all of his teeth due to an accident on a film set in 1932 (how he lost his teeth is hard to confirm-some say it was in a fight on a set with another actor, other stories blame a kick in the mouth from a mule), and his thinning hair made him look older than his age.  As a result, most of the roles that Brennan would become well known for in the thirty years when he was beyond being an extra & instead was a highly-billed (though never top-billed) character draw in movies would be playing older than he actually was, including Northwest Passage, where he plays a mentor role of sorts to Robert Young (our star in May!), who was just a decade younger than Brennan in this movie.

(Spoilers Ahead) Northwest Passage is a fictionalized version of the real-life figure Major Robert Rogers (Tracy), who in 1940 was quite well-known thanks to the novel that this book is adapted from (Kenneth Roberts' book Northwest Passage, largely forgotten today, was the second bestselling book of 1937 behind only Gone with the Wind).  The film starts with a disgraced Langdon Towne (Young), after being kicked out of Harvard seminary as he wants to become a painter, joining the military unwittingly along with his friend Hunk Mariner (Brennan).  At this point, while they are critical players, it's Rogers who becomes the main headliner (this is MGM in 1940-you put Spencer Tracy in your movie, he's going to get the biggest part).  The movie follows them as they do raids alongside the Mohawk tribe against the French, but really the biggest problem for the soldiers is that they're starving and going mad with hunger (in some cases, quite literally) in the middle of the woods.  They finally reach the fort they are seeking, and at the end of the movie start a new adventure-seeking out "Detroit" and the famed Northwest Passage.

The movie is fascinating for a variety of reasons.  For starters, they only use half of Roberts' novel, and the studio clearly intended to make a sequel to the film, assuming it would be a hit in the same way that Gone with the Wind was (to the point where they billed it as "Book 1" on the title card).  However, the high production cost ultimately made it less-than-profitable even though it grossed a lot of money, and the sequel never appeared.  The film also attracted a lot of attention for its gross depiction of American Indians, including a raid on a sleeping American Indian village that results in one of the soldiers later attempting cannibalism on one of the deceased American Indians that they killed in the raid out of hunger.  Putting aside the Hays Code for a second (I am stunned the cannibalism was able to stay in this movie), this is hard to forgive & much like Song of the South, it wasn't a byproduct of our eyes today-it was criticized at the time too.

With that aside, there are aspects of Northwest Passage that are easier to recommend.  The film's river chain scene is the most famous sequence in the movie, and a great tribute to practical effects in early 1940's Hollywood, where they literally have one of the most realistic studio tanks rushing through a band of extras (plus stars Tracy, Young, & Brennan) as they attempt to fjord a river that would surely have drowned the men in real life.  The movie's cinematography, which was Oscar-nominated is gorgeous, a sea of green & brown as it was primarily shot outdoors in Idaho rather than in a studio lot (despite the above photo, which was one of the only good ones I could find with Brennan in it, the movie is shot in beautiful Technicolor), and it pays off with lush vistas for the actors to parade through.  The acting is solid too, particularly Tracy (who plays Rogers rightfully as a bit of a jackass) and Brennan.  Brennan would win an Oscar for his evil Judge Roy Bean in The Westerner that year (generally considered to be the best of his three Oscar wins), and he was on something of a role as he plays Hunk as sensitive, washed-up, and dare I say it...a little bit queer?  There's a scene where Brennan & Young are cuddled up and Young is talking about his girl back home that feels a bit gay to my Celluloid Closet eyes decades later.

Secret of the Incas (1954)

Film: Secret of the Incas (1954)

Stars: Charlton Heston, Robert Young, Nicole Maurey, Thomas Mitchell

Director: Jerry Hopper

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Robert Young: click here to learn more about Mr. Young (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week we discussed They Won't Believe Me, which was made during Robert Young's time as a freelance artist after his contract with MGM expired.  This was the best and most interesting time of Young's career as a leading man, making movies like The Enchanted Cottage and Crossfire which won acclaim (and Oscar nominations, though never for Young).  But in the early 1950's, Young's career started to falter badly.  Without a studio contract he didn't get steady work, and couldn't guarantee a substantial part even if he could get decent billing.  By 1954, when he made today's film (his last film) he hadn't worked in a major movie in two years (and his last film had been a generic western from RKO called The Half-Breed).  Secret of the Incas didn't even have him as the star-Charlton Heston, who was having a bit of a hot streak coming off of The Greatest Show on Earth (and 16 years Robert Young's junior) got the leading man role while Young was decidedly supporting.  This could've been the end of Young's career...but his luck was about to change.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is focused on Harry Steele (Heston) who is a tour guide in Peru (the film was actually shot at Machu Picchu, a first for a Hollywood movie).  He is in search of a rare Sunburst (a gold & jeweled plate), and has a map of where it is but has no means of getting there.  He works with a double-crossing associate named Ed (Mitchell), who frequently tries to kill him.  Enter a woman, Elena (Maurey), who is beautiful but doesn't have money...and is trying to find a way to America.  Harry makes an exception to his "only for money" tours, and helps her, but uses her to to get to Machu Picchu, therefore getting him a shot at the treasure.  When he gets there he meets Dr. Stanley Moorehead (Young), who is also in search of the Sunburst, but doesn't have the coordinates like Harry does (Stanley also falls for Elena, but you'll be forgiven for ignoring this plot as Elena sure does).  Harry eventually steals the Sunburst, having to fight off Ed to get it (Ed dies, falling down a cliff to his doom), but returns the Sunburst to the Incan people, realizing he loved the chase (and Elena) more than the treasure itself.

If you're having a sense of deja vu reading that, you're not alone.  Secret of the Incas was a hit in 1954, but it's not a particularly good movie.  Heston is not quite sexy enough to pull off an adventurous role like this (he was better suited for the stoic biblical epics that would become his bread-and-butter), and Young is banal in his supporting part.  But Secret of the Incas is noted for being the clear inspiration for Raiders of the Lost Ark, and it's staggering watching this that Spielberg doesn't owe the writers money.  Not only do they completely crib Heston's look for Harrison Ford in the movies, but they actually steal scenes from this movie to put in Raiders.  The famous scene where they discover the location of the grail through light-and-mirrors...that scene actually happens in Secret of the Incas as Heston finds the Sunburst.  So if you're an Indiana Jones fanatic, you need to see this even if it's not great, simply to marvel in what was clearly an inspiration for the movie.

As I mentioned above, this was Robert Young's last movie, but Young would quickly transition to massive success on television.  For years Young had been doing a radio program called Father Knows Best, which in 1954 became a TV show which he made with Jane Wyatt.  He'd follow that a decade later with a second hit, Marcus Welby, MD.  Both series won Young Emmy Awards, making him the first actor to ever win Emmy Awards for both comedy and drama (actors like Edie Falco, Carroll O'Connor, & Ed Asner would eventually follow).  Young would continue to make reunion films & specials for both series (as well as being the spokesman for Sanka for years), but would largely retire after Marcus Welby, dying in 1998 from respiratory failure at the age of 91.

They Won't Believe Me (1947)

Film: They Won't Believe Me (1947)

Stars: Susan Hayward, Robert Young, Jane Greer, Rita Johnson

Director: Irving Pichel

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Robert Young: click here to learn more about Mr. Young (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As we've mentioned a couple of times this month, Robert Young never became an iconic star despite decades of leading roles in the movies.  However, in the late 1940's he become something of a more interesting actor.  After his contract with MGM expired, Young turned into a freelance artist, and during this time frame he made arguably his best run of movies, including The Enchanted Cottage and Crossfire, both of which are movies that standup to modern scrutiny (you'll see if you click over to the reviews that I was a fan).  One of the movies during this period that he made was They Won't Believe Me, a gritty noir film from the era which had Young, atypical from his MGM days, playing a louse who regularly cheats on his wife.  Young would later say on The Dick Cavett Show that this was the one film where he got to play a "nasty character" and it resulted in a box office flop.  However, I'm a sucker for film noir (if you've read this blog a while you know it's my favorite genre), and was curious to see if Young, a rather limited actor, was better-suited for playing closer to the devil.

(Spoilers Ahead) Despite Hayward getting top-billing, this movie is very much Young's movie, with him playing Larry Ballentine, a mid-level employee at a brokerage firm who is able to enjoy a swanky lifestyle through his marriage to his wealthy wife Greta (Johnson).  Larry has regular affairs with Janice (Greer), whom he's been lying to about the state of his marriage in order to sleep with her.  When he tries to break things off with Greta (and run away with Janice), Greta essentially bribes him with a share in a high-scale brokerage firm, and he dumps Janice.  Once at the brokerage, he starts up an affair with a self-admitted gold-digger named Verna (Hayward), who is initially interested in him for his wife's money, but eventually falls in love with him.  Even after Greta once again tries to bribe Larry, it doesn't work, and he runs off with Verna, but before they can be married, they get into a car accident, killing Verna...whom the authorities assume is Greta.  Larry thinks he can take advantage of this situation by killing Greta when he gets home & disposing of her body, but when he gets there he finds that she's committed suicide.  As a result, he's gotten away with it-the money, and now he can pursue Janice once again, but it doesn't work.  When Greta's body is found, they assume he killed her, and while the jury gives a plea of "Not Guilty" (this entire story is told through flashback from the defense attorney's closing argument), Larry jumps out the window to his death before he can hear the verdict, already guilty of unforgivable crimes in his mind.

This, as I stated above, is a very atypical role for Young, who regularly played lighthearted romantic comedy roles during his MGM years, and even in movies like Crossfire and The Enchanted Cottage (both of which are heavier than his MGM fare) he's still a hero.  Young, though, given the opportunity to stretch his acting muscles, works really well here & this is easily the best I've seen him in a part.  His Larry is a cruel, callous man, and it juxtaposes well with Young's upstanding, upper-crust appearance & his longtime history as the good guy (even when he doesn't get the girl).  His rakish work here is admirable, and honestly I wish he'd been afforded more time to play parts like this.

Normally I'd be more gravitated toward his costars (film noirs are measured largely by how well the femme fatales show up, and here we have three of them), but somehow Young is best in show, even if Hayward comes close.  Hayward, another actor I don't always love, gives one of her best performances in this, her money-hungry beauty keeping the audience guessing as to her true motives (and true feelings about Larry) throughout the film's entire first half.  Greer & Johnson aren't quite as good as they could've been, a pity in particular for Greer, who was giving the greatest performance of her career in a different 1947 noir, Out of the Past.  But overall, this is excellent, and thankfully gave us a Young performance for me to finally champion.  Next week, we're going to conclude our month devoted to the actor with his final film role, in a movie that would serve as a blueprint for a picture that would later change the entire industry of Hollywood.

HM Pulham Esq. (1941)

Film: HM Pulham, Esq. (1941)

Stars: Hedy Lamarr, Robert Young, Ruth Hussey, Charles Coburn, Van Heflin, Bonita Granville

Director: King Vidor

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Robert Young: click here to learn more about Mr. Young (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week we talked about how Robert Young's early work was largely unremarkable, and while he was a leading man for most of his career, he was oftentimes overshadowed by the women in his career.  Indeed, Young, in a similar vein to someone like Robert Taylor (who, it's worth noting was a MUCH bigger deal than Young in his day) was a star who coasted off of the considerable charms of his leading ladies for over twenty years.  Today we're going to find the rare movie that was the exception to that rule.  While if you look at the poster for HM Pulham, Esq, you'd find that Hedy Lamarr is the top-billed player in the movie, it's Young who is at the center of this film.  Directed by King Vidor, HM Pulham Esq. was arguably the best chance that Young would've had to actually distinguish himself and become like the other actors of his era (the Spencer Tracy's and Clark Gable's) who could genuinely command the screen without the assistance of a Barbara Stanwyck or Joan Crawford.  Unfortunately for Young, he didn't have the charisma to pull off such a heavy lift.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Harry Moulton Pulham, Jr. (Young), who is a middle-aged businessman in a loveless marriage to his wife Kay (Hussey).  After being asked to organize his 25-year reunion from college, he begins to reminisce about his long lost love Marvin (Lamarr, and yes despite the name this is not to a queer love story though after writing that I really wish there was enough to the allegory to make that case as it'd be a far more interesting movie).  The two were from different castes, and while they love each other, it's clear that Harry is as much a product of his posh Boston upbringing as his seemingly stuffy parents are.  Marvin & Harry eventually reconnect, even sharing a passionate kiss, but they are both married & there's nothing there anymore-they made the right decision 25 years earlier when they decided to go separate ways.  In the end, Kay comes to Harry & seemingly acts differently, determined to have another go at the romance that has left their marriage, and the film ends with them hopefully getting a second chance at life.

HM Pulham Esq. reads as more interesting than it actually is when you look at that description, as well as what Vidor tried to do with the story structure.  Based on a novel by John P. Marquand, the book is told in the first person, and Vidor tries to emulate that by having everything in the movie from Harry's point of view.  Young is in every scene of the movie, and things like telephone calls you only hear what Harry hears (i.e. when Marvin calls her husband while Harry is in the room, we only hear her side of the conversation).  It's a neat trick, and combined with the sort of "lovers that couldn't make it work" trope that I love in this era's films (think Brief Encounter), this would normally be up my alley.

But it's not, and honestly it's mostly Young's fault.  I was worried when I picked Young for this series that I'd have to admit that I don't historically like Young as an actor, but I figured going through four of his undiscovered movies I'd find something to love...but so far I'm bankrupt.  Young doesn't have enough style or leading man flare to pull this off.  Someone like Robert Taylor whose insane handsomeness gave him a romanticism even when his acting didn't, would've been a better choice (or someone like Robert Montgomery, who frequently succeeded in the types of roles that Young couldn't, primarily because Montgomery was a significantly better actor, and would've given this part more callous regret).  But Young isn't capable of such things, and while Lamarr is better, her parts are usually so underwritten because the filmmakers are reliant on her otherworldly beauty, that she's unable to give Marvin (who doesn't even show up until a third of a way through the movie) much grounding.  The film flops with such underwhelming leads, and no amount of plot potential can get by a lack of chemistry.

OVP: The House of Rothschild (1934)

Film: The House of Rothschild (1934)

Stars: George Arliss, Loretta Young, Boris Karloff, Robert Young

Director: Alfred L. Werker

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Picture)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Robert Young: click here to learn more about Mr. Young (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Robert Young is an odd actor to pick for a series like this not because he doesn't fit the bill (in many ways he's the very definition of an actor who "made it big in TV after never landing in film" but because much of his film career doesn't have a lot of differentiation.  Unlike some stars we've profiled this year like Ann Sothern or Lucille Ball, his career doesn't have a lot of chapters.  Young began his career at the beginning of the Sound Era, initially working much of the first 15 years of his career at MGM, playing opposite big stars on the lot like Norma Shearer & Joan Crawford.  Young graduated from supporting work to love interest or third lead work rather quickly, and stayed there.  As a result, it's harder to fit a narrative around Young's work early in his career, but suffice it to say in 1934 he was clearly relegated to B movies on the MGM lot, working in a half dozen pictures a year at the time, and didn't appear to create much fuss over this.  One exception in his early career was when he was loaned to United Artists for a prestige biopic starring George Arliss, which was a big hit for the studio and won a Best Picture nomination: The House of Rothschild.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about the famed banking family the Rothschilds and their humble beginnings in a Jewish ghetto in Prussia which would, throughout the film graduate to them becoming the wealthiest family in Europe, helping to fund the Napoleonic wars (this film is not historically accurate, so I'm summarizing the plot, not the actual history).  The movie focuses first on the banking family's patriarch Mayer Rothschild (Arliss), who on his deathbed makes his five sons promise they'll always pursue wealth over all else.  As grown men, the smartest of the five Nathan (also Arliss) begins to grow his banking capital, frequently with the hurdle of anti-semitism, as some of the nobility refuses to interact with Nathan because he's Jewish, principally Count Ledrantz (Karloff, startlingly young without his typical Universal Monster movie makeup).  This causes Nathan to forbid his daughter Julie (Loretta Young) to see Captain Fitzroy (Robert Young), who is not Jewish.  By the end of the movie, though, money ends up being the true unifier, and Nathan is not only accepted into society but becomes a Baron, one who can condone Fitzroy & Julie's relationship.

It's always important to remember context when it comes to older movies.  In 1934, a film about anti-semitism was noteworthy, and it was particularly noteworthy given the parallels to what was going on in Europe at the time, with Hitler's rise to power on the backs of anti-Jewish rhetoric.  As a result, you'd almost be forgiven for thinking that this film being dated but still a hit was worth it; after all, who can argue against a movie, even a bad one, if it is espousing tolerance?

But The House of Rothschild to a modern audience reads as deeply antisemitic, showing the Jewish characters as money-loving & duplicitous.  Yes, they frequently get the upper-hand in arguments & overt antisemitism in the film (like when Count Ledrantz won't allow Rothschild to have a contract because of his ethnicity) is never rewarded, but the film plays into ugly Jewish stereotypes, and feels like the rare film about tolerance that reads as unflinchingly problematic and honestly, quite hateful.

On top of that, the movie is terrible.  It weirdly reads as a Big Short of its era, with Rothschild using difficult-to-understand stock market & loan maneuvering to ruin his opponents, and so you'd be forgiven if you didn't understand some of the more technical aspects of the film.  But Arliss (who, it should be noted, is not Jewish despite his most iconic parts being that of Jewish protagonists), is dreadful, every bit as bad as his Oscar-winning role as Benjamin Disraeli, and particularly bad as the Rothschild patriarch.  No one is good in this, not even Karloff (who is usually excellent even with bad material).  Our star is relegated to only a couple of scenes, and is largely window-dressing...he doesn't do much other than make out with Loretta Young (not a bad gig if you can get it, but still).  While this was a hit, it's easy to see why Young wasn't suddenly on critics' radars after a movie this banal.

Saturdays with the Stars: Robert Young

Each month of 2022 we will be taking a look at one-time film actors who became foundational figures in the early days of television, stretching from the early 1950's into the mid-1960's.  Last month we talked about Ann Sothern, who spent much of the 1940's getting cast in movie serials or B-parts, never really getting to the A-list potential of her acting talents until she found a second act in television.  This month, we are going to look at a man who spent much of the 1930's & 40's playing second fiddle to some of the biggest names in Hollywood, mostly for MGM, before a turn in radio got him not one but two of his most iconic & remembered roles in television.  This month's star is Robert Young.

Born the son of Irish immigrants in Chicago, Robert Young spent most of his childhood moving around the country with his family, eventually ending up in Los Angeles, where as a young man he would get extra work in silent pictures.  He was discovered by an MGM talent scout, and made his feature film debut in 1931's Black Camel.

Young, in some ways, is similar to Ann Sothern in that he was a proper leading man in his era, but unlike Sothern, he didn't really have a lot of movies that he opened on his own.  Young was more likely to be the romantic interest of women like Joan Crawford & Hedy Lamarr, whose names were the true draw on the marquee, not Young's.  After he left MGM, he enjoyed some success as a freelance artist, including making critically-regarded films like The Enchanted Cottage and Crossfire, but this didn't last, and by the early 1950's, he found himself in radio & television, playing insurance salesman Jim Anderson in Father Knows Best.  This would be a huge hit for both CBS & NBC (it spent most of its run network-hopping) and would lead Young to national prominence & a new lease on stardom.  This allowed him to not just make Father Knows Best, but his equally-loved Marcus Welby, MD, which allowed Young to be one of the only people to win Emmys as a series regular for both a comedy and a drama.  This month, though, we're going to look at Young's film career (which, to be fair, we've actually done a little bit of if you check out his label), and try to see if we can find out why film audiences didn't notice what television found so apparent.

Maisie (1939)

Film: Maisie (1939)

Stars: Ann Sothern, Robert Young, Ruth Hussey, Ian Hunter, Cliff Edwards, John Hubbard

Director: Edwin L. Marin

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Ann Sothern: click here to learn more about Ms. Sothern (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Ann Sothern spent most of her early career, after moving from Minneapolis to Los Angeles after dropping out of college, jumping from studio to studio with none of them feeling like a good fit.  RKO, Columbia, & finally MGM were her home throughout the 1930's and it honestly looked like Sothern at the age of thirty was going to be one of those actors who got a chance at Hollywood but couldn't graduate to proper stardom.  That was until Maisie came along.  Originally intended as a vehicle for Jean Harlow (who had starred in a different Wilson Collison property, Red Dust, to legendary success), when Harlow died unexpectedly the movie went to Sothern.  To the surprise of many, it was a smash hit for the studio, and Sothern quickly signed a star contract with MGM making in total ten Maisie pictures for the studio over the following decade.  We're going to do just one of the films this month, the first one, which starred Sothern opposite Robert Young, another future TV star.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Maisie (Sothern), a burlesque dancer lured out to Wyoming under the pretense of being the star in a new show there, only to find out that the show has already closed, leaving her penniless in the middle-of-nowhere.  She meets a guy named Slim (Young), who has no use for women, but thanks to tagging along with him she finds work as a maid for Slim's employer Cliff's (Hunter) wife Sybil (Hussey), who is having an affair despite promising her husband she'd be more faithful.  Slowly Slim & Maisie fall for each other, their initial dislike turning into attraction, but a tragic car accident leads Cliff to find out his wife is still having an affair, and in the process, he kills himself.  Meanwhile, Sybil, prior to Cliff's death, tricks Slim into thinking that it's Maisie having the affair (with Cliff) and after he confronts her she storms off, only to return when Slim is tried for Cliff's murder.  In the end, Slim & Maisie end up together after Cliff's death is ruled a suicide, and find out that Cliff left the two of them the ranch in his will so they can have a proper happily ever after.

The movie is cute, if predictable, and it's easy to see why audiences fell for Sothern in this role.  Up until this point in her career, a lot of her work had been in the wrong genre, but Sothern was made for romantic comedy, and this fits her like a glove.  She gets a lot of the great one-liners off here, playing Maisie as a sassy broad, perhaps in a way that better suits the role than even Harlow would've been able to achieve.  While Harlow was always a damaged blonde star, frequently in her best roles feeling like she's got a little bit of desperation behind the bottle blonde look (I'm such a fan of hers, she was a previous star in this series and was mesmerizing in Red Dust and Dinner at Eight), this material needs someone to play it more broadly, and Sothern understands that.  This isn't breaking new ground, but it's harmless & fun.

The Maisie films would become Sothern's calling card until her turn in television.  Over the coming weeks we'll continue to look at her work in film, but I wanted to point out that she is a weird entry in this year's series.  Unlike someone like Lucille Ball, she wasn't unsuccessful in this era-the Maisie films kept some of MGM's more prestigious, expensive-and-less-profitable classic dramas of the era from bankrupting the studio.  But she wasn't really a seriously-considered actress, not in the way that women like Joan Crawford & Greta Garbo had been for the studio, and despite her successes isn't really thought of today for her work during this era.  Keep that in mind in the coming weeks; Sothern isn't the tale of a woman who couldn't make it in pictures, but instead was a star who always felt like she got the short end of the stick until television gave her a second chance.

OVP: Three Comrades (1938)

Film: Three Comrades (1938)

Stars: Robert Taylor, Margaret Sullavan, Franchot Tone, Robert Young

Director: Frank Borzage

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actress-Margaret Sullavan)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Hey there!  First off, I want to say sorry about the relatively scant offerings on the blog over the past two weeks.  A combination of events both expected (and welcomed) and unexpected (and less welcomed) kept me busy with real world events, and as a result, I've been unable to do much writing beyond our Saturdays with the Stars series.  I am hopeful that we'll be able to get some semblance of normal, though in the next week or two we'll likely be a bit more sporadic before we settle back into our daily routine.  Today, we're going to get back into at least something of a groove by looking at another film from 1938 (I'm not sure of the exact date of when I can reveal why we've been focusing so much on 1938 lately, but there is a reason & I'm hopeful I'll be able to share it by the end of the month) and with a unique film not because of its actors or its director, but because of its writer.  Three Comrades is the only film to ever be written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the most influential novelists of the 20th Century.  I enjoy Fitzgerald's look at the anguish of modern life, and have a particular sense of pride that he's from my home state, so I was curious what a man who has written a lot of novelists that are basically pronounced as "unfilmable" would do with his sole cinematic output.

(Spoilers Ahead) Three Comrades is the story of three soldiers, Erich (Taylor), Otto (Tone), and Gottfried (Young) and their time in the years coming up toward World War II (though obviously made in 1938, they don't know that's about to break out, neither character nor actor).  The movie largely focuses on their movements as they try to battle fascism in Germany, while also each of them being drawn to a young woman named Patricia (Sullavan), who ultimately lands on Erich (Robert Taylor is the lead for a reason) as her primary love interest, but there's a catch: Patricia is dying from tuberculosis, and as a result their romance has a tragic sell-by date.  Still, they continue on, and we see their struggles to keep their romance alive while also seeing the cost of fighting against the Nazis & the toll it takes on the friendship (it won't be just Patricia who dies in this movie) before the film comes to its inevitable, melancholy fate.

The film is quite melodramatic, and the direction initially is off-putting.  All of the figures are meant to be playing Germans, set against the rise of fascism in World War II, but all of the main actors are American, and none of them attempt an accent.  This is particularly galling for Taylor, who speaks in a deeply Midwestern intonation and is an odd fit for this story (which is weird, because Robert Taylor with his curt demeanor and intense handsomeness, was always at-home in melodramas).  The film's politics (all taking place on the eve of World War II) also feel strange in how insightful they are, showing the growing discord ravaging the European continent.

But the film works-I liked it.  Fitzgerald knows story structure, and isn't afraid to have his characters dying to serve the story (note the plural-as I mentioned above several characters die here), and Sullavan's work is strangely effective.  Other than Shop Around the Corner I didn't know a lot about her as a performer, and I found her deeply-affected work here quite transportive.  She plays Patricia as a woman who knows she's doomed, but has fallen in love anyway (perhaps with all three men in her way).  This sort of romantic figure could be frustrating, but I think she gives her a wide-eyed pessimism that I liked.  Patricia in her hands is less a victim of circumstance and more someone who doesn't want to be a saint.  In a different life she was the gay life force of a party, not the woman stuck in a disease that will claim her...and she knows that the illness has affected her ability to be that person, forcing her to choose the life of a martyr.  It's delicate stuff, and sometimes too much (the death scene is overly dramatic, and perhaps too indulgent though it worked on me), but Three Comrades is a great time, and she bolsters it.

Secret Agent (1936)

Film: Secret Agent (1936)

Stars: John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll, Robert Young

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Madeleine Carroll-click here to learn more about Ms. Carroll (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Madeleine Carroll is one of the least known (if not truly the least known) of the women we're going to profile this year for our third season of Saturdays with the Stars.  But she holds a distinction shared by just a handful of these women, and that is that she actually starred in two Alfred Hitchcock films.  Last week we talked about her complicated relationship with Hitchcock (at one point he put handcuffs on her that literally resulted in her getting welts on her wrists in The 39 Steps), but it's undeniable that that film made her a star, and it made sense (by 1930's logic) for her to reunite quickly after with Hitchcock and her leading man Robert Donat in another thriller (if it ain't broke...).  Unfortunately, Donat wasn't well at the time (he suffered from severe asthma that inhibited his leading man potential), and so with Secret Agent we got Hitch, Madeleine, and John Gielgud, an unlikely (and ill-suited) replacement for Donat in our second Hitchcock film this month.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Edgar Brodie (Gielgud), a member of the British army, who has been pronounced dead in the newspapers by mistake, and therefore is the perfect person to undertake a spy mission.  He is hired by a man named "R" who wants him to find a German agent who is working against British interests in the Middle East.  He is partnered with the "General" (Lorre), who is not a general but is a hired killer, and a heartless, eccentric one at that.  Brodie, now under the guise of "Ashenden" is also assigned a wife named Elsa (Carroll), who despises him at first (or so it seems), and is interested in this caper due to the thrill of it, not realizing that it comes with a cost; she spends much of her time, despite being "married" to Ashenden flirting with playboy Marvin (Young), who doesn't seem to mind that the women he's chasing has a husband.  Ashenden & the General initially think a mountaineer is the spy, killing him in a harrowing scene atop a mountain, but then they learn he isn't the spy (which causes Elsa to be despondent over her involvement in killing an innocent man).  We finally learn, after she leaves, that Marvin is the secret agent, and aboard a train there is a standoff between the four, with both Marvin & the General killed, and Ashenden & Elsa, now in love, quitting the espionage business and instead pursuing a real marriage.

The movie is conventional.  While modern audiences will initially wonder if Lorre is the double agent due to his long history of playing double-crossers, it's pretty apparent as the movie goes that it'll be Young (otherwise why is he there?).  Secret Agent was not as well-received as The 39 Steps, and it's not difficult to understand why.  The twists are routine, and while the camerawork is inventive (particularly the murder of the mountaineer, and a strange crime scene involving an organist), that doesn't solve the biggest problem in the movie-the casting of Gielgud.

Gielgud apparently disliked this film, thinking that Robert Young got the better part of the two men, and while he's wrong (Peter Lorre is the only person giving a great performance here, and completely steals the picture), he is correct that he was a horrible fit for this.  Hitchcock's leading men need to be everyday guys stuck in extraordinary circumstances, and while Gielgud was a fine actor, he was not great at playing an "average chap."  His chemistry with Carroll isn't as good as hers with Donat, as both feel stilted & she gets on much better with Young (who of the two actors in general I'd never prefer, but is better here even if he's nowhere near as good as Lorre).  As a result, Secret Agent is a miss, and it's easy to see why Carroll never worked with Hitchcock again.  Next week, we're going to move away from Madeleine's relationship with Hitchcock, and watch what happens as she takes full advantage of her new stardom in America.

OVP: Lady Be Good (1941)

Film: Lady Be Good (1941)
Stars: Robert Young, Ann Sothern, Eleanor Powell, John Carroll, Red Skelton, Virginia O'Brien, Lionel Barrymore
Director: Norman Z. McLeod
Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Original Song-"The Last Time I Saw Paris")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I think one of the strangest things about the Oscar Viewing Project (and there are a lot of strange things about seeking out truly random films from each year, realizing what the Wonder or Marshall of 1941 is), is that you learn some of the truly bizarre "footnotes" of Oscar history, perhaps one of the stranger ones being Lady Be Good.  A romantic comedy-musical from the early 1940's, it's pretty standard fare, with some truly memorable numbers (including Eleanor Powell's spellbinding "Fascinating Rhythm"), but the film's only claim to fame with Oscar was its song "The Last Time I Saw Paris," a staple of the era that has been recorded by everyone from Dinah Shore to Connie Francis to (inevitably) Tony Bennett.  The problem is, though, it's not an original, and wasn't written with this movie in mind.

(Spoilers Ahead) The song, in fact, was written by Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein II, but had become a radio staple circa 1940, with Kate Smith's version being the most popular cover.  However, MGM, smelling a way they could take advantage of a hit song for their new musical, included the movie in the picture, a fitting ode to a movie that regularly praises Kern specifically (the two lead characters Dixie Donegan and Eddie Crane, played by Ann Sothern & Robert Young, respectively, are both songwriters).  Sothern performs the song in tight closeup (unusually tight for a film of the era), and because the rules at the time for the Oscars more mandated that a film use a song, rather than it be original, the film won the Oscar.  Kern so hated that he won for a song that he hadn't originally intended for the picture that we got the very stringent usage rules we have today (which has cost numerous songs, including "Come What May," their chances at the Oscars).

The song itself is hardly special in the film, and while Sothern does a lovely job at it, honestly this is the rare musical film that doesn't really need music (the dancing's the best part, anyway).  The movie follows Dixie & Eddie as they marry and attempt to divorce twice, realizing that the chemistry of their relationship fizzles when they mix marriage with work, but that they clearly love each other.  A kindly judge (Barrymore) overhears much of the story (which is told by Sothern as part of her divorce testimony), and doesn't grant them a divorce at the end because he sees that they clearly belong together.  It's a cute movie, and while it is very predictable, there are some game performances in the film that make it charming.

Sothern, for example, a finely gifted comedienne, is charming and winning in the lead.  Robert Young, whom I have developed an allergy to through the OVP (every era has a few performers I cannot get behind at all, and he's one of them), is mercifully quiet for most of the film, as it's really Sothern's show and he's along for the ride, so he doesn't distract like I suspect he would have otherwise.  Skelton is a genuine supporting part, and great with Virginia O'Brien (whom I want to see a lot more of, fast, as her schtick is quite modern and reminds me of Kristen Schaal in a lot of ways).  Best of all is Eleanor Powell, dynamite as Sothern's best friend (Powell gets top billing for the picture, but she's most definitely a supporting player), who is flirty & deadpan with a hapless John Carroll, and an absolute marvel in two dance numbers, one with a dog (who two-steps along with her!), and a scene that has to be watched to be believed, where she tap dances for four straight minutes alongside a sea of dueling grand pianos.  Powell, who really doesn't get her due these days, has become a favorite of mine in the OVP (a reverse Robert Young), and this may well be my favorite performance of hers yet.

OVP: Crossfire (1947)

Film: Crossfire (1947)
Stars: Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame, Jacqueline White
Director: Edward Dmytryk
Oscar History: 5 nominations (Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor-Robert Ryan, and Supporting Actress-Gloria Grahame)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

On occasion Oscar decides to go with a film that doesn't seem extremely typical of his tastes.  It's not necessarily that he always ignores a specific genre or filmmaker (though occasionally he does), it's just that when he goes there, it seems to be at an odd time or in a big way.  Think of someone like Darren Aronofsky finally getting his moment with a horror film like Black Swan.  Or, in this case Edward Dmytryk, who made some of the best film noir films of the 1940's, getting randomly assigned a quintet of very big nominations for Crossfire, a film that is excellent but all of his films usually were, so I don't know why this particular film caught their fancy.

(Spoilers Ahead) I'm glad it did, though, as otherwise it would have just been another film that I need to get around to on Dmytryk's filmography rather than one that I'm reviewing right now.  The film is your classic detective drama: we open with a man named Joseph Samuels having died, with the likely killer being amongst a troupe of demobilized soldiers.  We see an investigator named Keeley (Young) who is determined to find the killer, though apparently only by staying behind his desk (was Robert Young pregnant or something during this movie-he seems like he's behind a desk 80% of the movie and he's the lead!).  Initially he's led to believe that a cowardly corporal named Mitchell is the killer, but slowly (and with a bit of help from Robert Mitchum, playing the always-honest but inevitably tough soldier-without-a-cause) figures out that it is of course one of the headliners, in this case Robert Ryan in the role that would win him an Oscar nomination and leading man status.

The film is a conundrum for me in terms of whether to love it or not.  For some reason (perhaps it's his weird blandness), but Robert Young is one of those leading men of Classical Hollywood whose appeal I just don't get (Dick Powell is also on this list).  He's easily the most boring character in every film that he ever makes, and I just feel underwhelmed with him when someone like, say, Paul Henreid would have been a more compelling leading man.  Still, the dialogue and plotting of this movie is brisk and wildly entertaining-you can see the killer coming a mile away, but you don't actually know how many people are going to die before he's caught, or even if they will find justice for him (noir being one of those rare genres where Hollywood cliche can occasionally get thrown to the wolves).  And I loved the way that the film took its time with certain scenes-one of the things you can enjoy when you watch old films, and something that newer directors should take note of, is that you build so much from characters if you let them sit and talk for a bit, rather than edit everything down to the absolute essentials of a scene.  Your actors get to stretch out their characters a bit, let us know their facial expressions and not just cliched cues of facial expressions.

The film's acting is easily the best part of it, particularly the Oscar-nominated supporting players.  Robert Ryan as an anti-Semitic soldier could so easily have drifted into cliche, and occasionally his dialogue does (1947 was the year of the Academy taking a stand against anti-Semitism, with both Crossfire and Gentleman's Agreement gaining nominations in the Best Picture race), but his performance feels very modern.  There is genuine fear felt against him onscreen, and there's a reason-he uses his massive frame and dark, penetrating eyes to great effect, and frequently talks in sentences that could be threats, but might be just normal chatter.  It's something that great screen villains are made of, and it was definitely something that left me wanting more.

The same could be said for Gloria Grahame, getting her first Oscar nomination as a taxi dancer (though you get the impression she's also a prostitute) with little going for her, but a lot of weariness.  So often films of this era would make the "hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold" style characters, but Grahame (best known to modern audiences as Violet in It's a Wonderful Life) doesn't go that route-she's not here to change the course of a hero, she's simply a random stranger that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I loved the complicated relationship she has with the man in her apartment, first claiming to be her husband and then we learn that he's clearly something darker, possibly a pimp or even a stalker.  There's so much gritty truth in this side character and her performance in what could have been a throwaway role.  I have to say that both Ryan and Grahame wholly deserved their Oscar nominations for this movie.

Those are my thoughts on Crossfire, a great little film that hopefully you catch late at night on a Saturday sometime (it plays better, like most movies, when you're watching it in the dark).  If you've seen it, what are your thoughts on the movie, and on Ryan and Grahame in particular?  Does anyone really love Robert Young (am I going to have to investigate his TV work to finally get the joke)?  And why do you think this film, of all of the movies that he made, got Dmytryk his sole Oscar nod for directing?  Share in the comments!

OVP: The Enchanted Cottage (1945)

Film: The Enchanted Cottage (1945)
Stars: Dorothy McGuire, Robert Young, Herbert Marshall, Mildred Natwick, Spring Byington
Director: John Cromwell
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Original Score)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

It's hard to imagine somedays, but there was once a time when television and its ability to shape dozens of stories, characters, and ideas into a weekly visit into our living rooms was not a regular occurrence, or even something that was a possibility.  At the time, the only way of doing that was through the mediums of literature, and later movies.  I kept thinking back on this while watching The Enchanted Cottage, as the entire plotline seemed, for better or worse, to be a perfect tale for one of the all-time greatest television series, The Twilight Zone.

(As I just mentioned The Twilight Zone, you know spoilers are coming, so carry on at your own risk) The movie takes place in a small New England town, where a homely girl becomes a maid at a mysterious cottage.  The girl is Dorothy McGuire, though, so "homely" is a bit of a stretch when you have someone as beautiful as she onscreen-they may have subtracted the makeup and given her dumpy clothes but with those eyes and that complexion, "homely" is not the correct word.  She works for a housekeeper played by veteran character actress Mildred Natwick (channelling Judith Anderson in Rebecca, at least in the start of the film) who has lived in the house ever since her husband tragically died during World War I.  They are taking in guests on the eve of World War II, including the dashing bridegroom-to-be Robert Young.  Young goes off-to-war and comes back with tragic scarring and becomes a recluse in the house, only to find himself falling for, and then marrying McGuire's dowdy maid.

The story progresses with a twist, that after their marriage, suddenly they have returned to their movie star good looks (good looks in quotations here for Young-while he's obviously not ugly, I've always found him a little too "Mickey Rooney" looking for my tastes, but for the sake of argument let's proceed once more).  They share this good fortune with no one except their blind friend, played by Herbert Marshall.  What Marshall eventually realizes, and which McGuire and Young find out in an unfortunate scene with Spring Byington later, is that they have not in fact changed, but love has caused them to see themselves as beautiful, and that is the enchantment of the cottage.  After realizing that this is all that matters, we get a movie-star kiss and a happy ending.

For anyone familiar with The Twilight Zone, you can tell that this is the exact sort of "twist, then moral-of-the-story" sort of tale that they familiarized itself with.  Unfortunately, this is not in one of their tight, 25 minute packages, but instead in a 91-minute film, and so there's quite a bit of filler.  The score (which features prominently in multiple scenes in the movie, as the characters are constantly playing the piano) aides the film, and the two leads, whom I'm not a super big fan of, to be honest, both do lovely jobs (particularly McGuire), but it's the sort of film that would be too simple to have been made today-charming, sweet, and with a dash of mystery, but even at an hour and a half, far too long for the film at hand.  Don't feel too badly for them, though-McGuire in particular was having a landmark year in her career-she had also made the classic The Spiral Staircase and my personal favorite of her films, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  Two years later, she'd be a headliner in her sole Oscar-nominated performance, in Gentleman's Agreement.  Young would continue playing the overly-confident romantic lead roles in B-Grade movies, until finding massive success later on in that already discussed medium of television.

How about you? Have you seen The Enchanted Cottage?  Do you agree with my assessment that it would be better suited for television, or was only the big screen appropriate for this love story?  And what are your thoughts on Young and McGuire-do you have a favorite role, and do you think they should be better-remembered film stars than they are today?

OVP: That Forsyte Woman (1949)

Film: That Forsyte Woman (1949)
Stars: Greer Garson, Errol Flynn, Walter Pidgeon, Robert Young, Janet Leigh
Director: Compton Bennett
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Costume Design)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

There are film twists that, currently, seem like obvious choices that years later actually lose a bit of their potency, and this is where I start on this rather dour and overstuffed movie.  The Forsyte Saga, for those familiar with the series of books by John Galsworthy or the Masterpiece Theater classic starring Gina McKee and Rupert Graves, is a terrific soap opera about an upper-middle class family in Britain, and truly great fodder for a film.  However, this particular movie has all of the mechanics of a soap opera, but none of the suspense and fun.

Perhaps I should go to the first, seemingly obvious choice that falls flat on its face, the casting of Errol Flynn as the brutish Soames Forsyte, a man who gets what he wants, especially when told he can't have it.  Flynn seems like an obvious choice for this, and if off-screen rumors are true, was fairly similar to Forsyte in multiple ways.  However, Flynn cannot seem to master any of the emotions that are required to play such a complicated character (Damien Lewis was much better years later), and only manages to be domineering without giving any indication as to the "why" behind his character's decisions.  Granted, this is Classical Hollywood, but Bogart, a similar leading man, was able to do this beautifully in most of his films in the 1940's.  With such a blank slate at the leading man, everyone else's fears and actions seem terribly out-of-balance.

Greer Garson, of course, is intensely watchable in tragic melodramas, and gives her all, but her leading men continue to be too dour and too dull to compare to her.  Walter Pidgeon has undeniable chemistry with her (they appeared in eight films together during her years at MGM), but he's so briefly onscreen, and quite frankly, casting him sort of ruins the suspense of the movie.  (Spoiler Alert, though if you've made it this far, you're probably already familiar) Throughout the film, there's actually a solid question of whether Garson will end up with Flynn or Pidgeon, but casting her opposite her favorite leading man sort of seals the deal.  And the less said about Robert Young, who is badly miscast and is the least appealing of the three leading men whatever Garson's Irene decides toward the end, the better. Garson has the most fun onscreen with Janet Leigh, who is a joy to see in her vivacious young glory.  Janet, like another woman who shares her last name, is eternally attached to a few classic films (in Janet's case, Touch of Evil, The Manchurian Candidate, and of course Psycho) and rarely does anyone notice the remainder of her long and impressive filmography.  As I continue working my way through the 1950's, I expect I shall.

The film received only one Costume Design, but there's little arguing with it.  The Costume Design in the film is beautiful and incredibly bold.  The designs seem to be borrowing as much from the 1940's as they do the 1880's (that remarkable black-and-white number that Garson wears seems far too modern for Victorian England), but it becomes the thing you most look forward to from scene to scene: what decadence will Garson and Leigh be wearing next?  Also of note, and if anyone can point this out to me, I'd appreciate it-this film, according to both IMDB and Wikipedia was released in the US in 1949, but was not nominated until the 1950 Oscars, putting it against the unstoppable Samson and Delilah (it may have had a better chance the year prior).  Anyone know why that is?  Did it really take that long to get the film to Los Angeles?

What about you-which version of the Forsyte Saga do you prefer?  Do you have a favorite Pidgeon/Garson matchup?  And what is truly Janet Leigh's finest hour?